Complete Newbies Guide: Upgrading Mi Mix 2 From China Rom To Xiaomi.eu Rom


Edgarbv

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1 Nov 2017
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Having never flashed a ROM before, I found that a lot of the documentation is fragmentary, hard to understand and a lot of it assumes that you understand certain concepts - which I didn't. So as I went along to (finally) succesfully install this awesome ROM from stock China ROM, I documented it all in a hopefully easier to understand manner, with all the steps you need. It might look like a lot, but it's not that bad really. Hopefully this will get more people using this ROM! NB: At the end of this post there is a link to xiaomitool, which claims to do all this for you. What I think that tool would be most useful for is for going back to a stock Xiaomi Global or Chinese ROM.

Unlocking the phone

* Register your mi account on www.xiaomi.com
* at account.xiaomi.com set up your recovery phone number under security. Under personal info, set your name (to a nickname). You should receive an account verification code per text message / sms. You don't need to have the sim in your mi phone, but can have it in your old phone.
* In Mi App store search for Google. Install the result
* Set up google account and open Google Play Store
* Install VPN Turbo - Free (red icon with rabbit)
* Start up VPN Turbo, select China and put the slider on Green. Wait a bit for connection.
* Set up developer mode on the phone: settings -> My device -> all specs -> click 5 or 6 times on MIUI version
* settings -> additional settings (under system and device) -> developer options -> enable OEM unlocking and then Mi Unlock status: Add account and device (NB without a VPN connection to China, this will give you a 1008 error (which is why VPN Turbo)
* visit http://unlock.update.miui.com and fill in (this is where you need the name and number from the account you set up with xiaomi.com). You should receive a verification code per text message / sms. You don't need to have the sim in your mi phone, but can have it in your old phone. This code is valid for 5 minutes!
* Wait for text message / sms from xioami granting you permission. visit http://en.miui.com/unlock and click on the unlock now button. You can now download the unlock tool.
Step 1. Download the Mi Unlock app to PC,
rightclick on miusbdriver and run as administrator. Install the drivers.
start up the miflash_unlock utility after unzipping and sign in with your Mi Account;
Step 2. Shut down your phone manually, and hold Volume down key and Power button to enter Fastboot mode; Whilst the fastboot logo is shown. This is also known as entering the Bootloader.
Step 3. Connect your phone to PC using USB cable and click "Unlock" on the PC. Then unlock anyway all the warnings. If the unlocker fails with an error "mi unlock couldn't unlock after X hours of trying to unlock the device" WAIT for the amount of hours (you need to wait 72 hours after receiving the unlock text message / sms from Xiaomi). If you don't wait and keep trying to unlock you will have to wait much much longer due to spamming!

Installing TWRP on the recovery partition / Recovery Mode

Go to https://xiaomi.eu/community/forums/miui-weekly-rom-releases.103/ and open the highest (latest) thread [edit: in the MIUI 9.1 series / version 7.12.x - the MIUI 9.3 series is still testing for the Mix2, so use those at your own peril!] . In the download weekly links, you can search for "mix2" and download the rom. Notice in the table that the Mi Mix 2 is codenamed chiron. Scroll down to "ROMs for devices with locked bootloader:" I found the instructions given in the thread to be somewhat confusing, so here is a rewrite.

First we replace the recovery partition with one by TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project), which is open source.

* Download the chiron file from TWRP Recovery Zip links. Unzip it into the unzipped Mi Unlock app. It will contain a file twrp.img.
* Open a command prompt and cd to the directory of your unzipped Mi Unlock app (eg. cd c:\users\username\Desktop\Xiaomi\)
* type the following into the command line:
fastboot flash recovery twrp.img
This is supposed to write TWRP to the recovery partition, but for some reason so far after a reboot or two I go back to the original China recovery partition. See Updating the ROM below.
Reboot the phone into fastboot mode (volume down and power buttons) whilst connected to the USB port.
It will say something like:
< waiting for device >
target reported max download size of 536870912 bytes
sending 'recovery' (26892 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.595s]
writing 'recovery'...
OKAY [ 0.113s]
finished. total time: 0.709s
Now type the following into the command prompt:
fastboot boot twrp.img
This puts the phone into Recovery Mode and starts the TWRP programme up (you see a menu) It will say something like the following:
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [ 0.594s]
booting...
OKAY [ 0.015s]
finished. total time: 0.609s
On the phone you will receive a menu [Note, if you do not see a menu, see https://xiaomi.eu/community/threads...china-rom-to-xiaomi-eu-rom.42099/#post-404322.]
* The first thing to do is select Wipe and format the data partition. This gets rid of the encryption on the data partition. If you don't do this, when you write the ROM you can't read it again.
* After doing this, reboot the phone (unsure whether to install the twrp things or not. I did anyway). You need to do this due to the partition being encrypted and wiping it gets rid of the encryption.
Note: you can enter recovery mode by starting up the phone pressing the volume up and power buttons.

Installing the xiaomi.eu ROM

* Now in the command prompt rerun the last command (fastboot boot twrp.img) and reboot the phone to fastboot mode. You get the twrp menu. Copy the downloaded ROM zip file somewhere on the phone. Select Install on the phone and then choose the ROM zip file you downloaded. It could be you get 2 red errors during installation but this isn't something to worry about. After installation, reboot the phone.
* For some reason after doing this I only got the Mi Logo and the Android text with the buttons underneath for a while. I fixed this by going into fastboot mode and running the commandline (fastboot boot twrp.img) and then wiping the data partition again and rebooting. It then went into the miui 9 opening screen.
* The first time you reboot after installing a new ROM, it will take quite a bit longer than normal to reboot. Be patient, it will boot. After this, rebooting will be much faster!

Updating the xiaomi.eu ROM

Because it's an unstable ROM, it gets updated weekly. You will see a message saying there is a new version, allow you to download it (I recommend you download it a day later: it's around 1.5GB and everyone wants to download at the same time, making it a slow download) and then install it. It installs by entering recovery mode. For some reason, the above instructions didn't seem to permanently write TWRP to the recovery partition and so when entering recovery mode, it would go to the original Chinese recovery partition. So my solution so far, is to reinstall TWRP (command prompt, fastboot flash recovery twrp.img), start up the phone and then try the update again.

Rebooting into TWRP once it has been installed

You can find a program called. Run
adb reboot recovery
with the phone attached to the computer to reflash to a different ROM version
or
power down the phone, then power up the phone holding down the power button + volume up

Some stuff to think about doing afterwards

I found the launcher was dreadful at organising the icons - none of the shaking stuff in MIUI 8 works, there is no app drawer, you can't search. If you're looking for a useful, lightweight, no fuss launcher, I recommend evie launcher.
I haven't found a homescreen replacement yet, where you can do better than 19 characters of owner information and put widgets (eg the weather, local time and home time, etc) on.
If Whatsapp notification sounds don't play (didn't on mine), then set to another sound and they will.
No, Whatsapp has no way of turning the camera upside down when you are video calling.

Good luck and have fun!

EDIT: Xioamitool: https://xiaomi.eu/community/threads/tool-xiaomitool-xiaomi-rom-changing-made-easy.40576/

A little more info on the recovery partition reverting to the original Chinese from TWRP: https://xiaomi.eu/community/threads/original-xiaomi-recovery-starts-instead-of-twrp-recovery.41869/
https://xiaomi.eu/community/threads/flashing-twrp.41865/
https://www.addictivetips.com/android/what-is-twrp-how-to-install-use-it-on-android-devices-guide/
https://www.howtogeek.com/240047/how-to-flash-twrp-recovery-on-your-android-phone/
 
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Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I was blocked on the second point of Installing the xiaomi.eu ROM but thanks to your guide I was able to continue :)
 
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There's a catch, next thing after twrp install, enter twrp > Format Data, yes, (read message which tells you to Reboot to recovery) so Reboot to recovery.
This will make to have permanent twrp on your Mi Mix2. Enjoy

Sent from my MI 4W using Tapatalk
 
Hi, i have a problem with the strange message (10008 and chinese charactere) i have try with many VPN and selected china location but nothing i receive everytime this message.
if someone have a solution for me thank you.

(i have already unlock and flash the old mi mix)
 
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Reactions: Edgarbv
Hi, i have a problem with the strange message (10008 and chinese charactere) i have try with many VPN and selected china location but nothing i receive everytime this message.
if someone have a solution for me thank you.

(i have already unlock and flash the old mi mix)
Try FlexVPN
 
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Hey all, just sharing my experience and oddities with this process.

Going from China Stable to 7.11.9 (and now 16), had 2 boot issues - bootloop and where it gets stuck at logo / loading screen,
but finally got to the latest (7.11.16).

Background - Am a programmer, but not recently familiar with custom roms on android, and only recently got a Mix2.
Attempted to follow main instructions that are written with the release posts, and referencing this post as well.


The unlock process I started at the beginning of the week, never got notification, but had refreshed Mi Unlock's Apply page every few hours until it said I could now download the tool. (~8hrs from Sunday night to Monday morning).

I then used SoloVPN to easily connect to China and sync, in the Unlock Status screen.
(In case people aren't aware, HK cannot be considered China, though I did manage to successfully connect to Mi on 1 out of 3 HK proxies tested)

Mi Unlock then allowed me to see my 72 hour countdown. (~72 hours, felt like forever)

Getting EU working though was a bit more annoying. Though I started trying to reference many posts across the web while getting it to work, they mostly followed the same process, with different levels of wipes and solutions for boot loops, here is the abbreviated version of how it went for me:

Process: Install TWRP, Wipe data, TWRP Recovery, Copy zip, Install, Wipe d/c, Reboot
(fastboot flashes done with MiFlash)

Install EU 7.11.9 - boot loop
Fastboot'd to latest China Dev - works.
Install EU 7.11.9 - boot loop
Install EU 7.11.16 - stuck at logo
Fastboot'd to latest Global Dev - works.
Install EU 7.11.16 - stuck at logo
Fastboot'd to latest Global Stable
Install EU 7.11.16 - works


A single reply of another post on this subject, suggested to go to Global Stable 9.1.1.0 (not even needing to let it boot) before immediately flashing twrp, and finishing the process.

From what I can see on other posts, this is not always going to be what helps, and could be many things:
- not clearing /data from the previous rom's garbage
- zip integrity issues
- accidentally leaving MiFlash to relock the device
- forgetting Mi can overwrite recovery
- encryption getting in the way (recovery --wipe_data --set_filesystem_encryption=off)
- thinking official partial mi update zips can be used inside twrp


Good luck to all.
 
Thank you, mate. Your format data recommendation was the key! :)
By the way, in your tutorial you mistake Fastboot with Recovery twice. Fastboot is only used in order to unlock boot loader for the first time. ;-)
 
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Edgarbv thanks for your work and the great guide.
One thing i stumbled across was that TWRP could not be booted and was stuck on the splash screen. This has something to with the DATA partition format.
I found a solution for this: Basically in terminal/CMD in fastboot mode wipe cache and userdata then reboot to recovery.
fastboot format cache
fastboot format userdata
 
Edgarbv thanks for your work and the great guide.
One thing i stumbled across was that TWRP could not be booted and was stuck on the splash screen. This has something to with the DATA partition format.
I found a solution for this: Basically in terminal/CMD in fastboot mode wipe cache and userdata then reboot to recovery.
Hi, for me the first time I got TWRP to work, but you may have missed the step
On the phone you will receive a menu.
* The first thing to do is select Wipe and format the data partition. This gets rid of the encryption on the data partition. If you don't do this, when you write the ROM you can't read it again.
.
If not and you couldn't get TWRP started at all then thanks for helping out here... actually, thanks for helping and sharing anyway! :D
 
Yes I wasn't even able to start TWRP. It was stuck on the splash screen of TWRP and not loading.
So basically I did the format via fastboot and then TWRP worked.
 
Yes I wasn't even able to start TWRP. It was stuck on the splash screen of TWRP and not loading.
So basically I did the format via fastboot and then TWRP worked.
Then thanks for the extra info, I am sure it will help someone! I have edited to add your information.
 
so I have twrp on fastboot installed only if I started twrp I think it s not on the pc. could not be hung. and i can not install eu rom. after a reboot the twrp is gone.
 
Thanks,
i receive last 3 days my mix2, wait some hours to unlock and follow your guide :)

Up :Nice, after i use integrated app mi mover to transfert old to new phone
 
Last edited:
Hi, i have a problem with the strange message (10008 and chinese charactere) i have try with many VPN and selected china location but nothing i receive everytime this message.
if someone have a solution for me thank you.

(i have already unlock and flash the old mi mix)

Try ExpressVPN a little bit expensive but best VPN for Android. I am using it and having best experiences with services also you can check here more services for Android on ReviewsDir
 
Does Mi Backup able to restore apps and configs after change from ofiicial china to xiaomi.eu?
 
Guys,

How do I copy the .zip to the phone? its connected with USB to PC and in fastboot mode to twrp.

Phone appears on my PC but I cant copy anything to it. Im trying to go into mount-->USB-OTG but unable to select it.

Any ideas??
 
Can you start twrp on your phone (power + vol up button)? When twrp is on plug usb cable between pc and phone. then copy downloaded zip from your pc to the phones internal memory.